Thursday, August 30, 2018

Slow but inevitable?
John H. Durham, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that GEORGE GAROFANO, 26, of North Branford, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Victor A. Bolden in Bridgeport to eight months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for engaging in a phishing scheme that gave him illegal access to more than 200 Apple iCloud accounts, many of which belonged to members of the entertainment industry.
According to court documents and statements made in court, from April 2013 through October 2014, GAROFANO engaged in a phishing scheme to obtain usernames and passwords for iCloud accounts. GAROFANO admitted that he sent e-mails to victims that appeared to be from security accounts of Apple and encouraged the victims to send him their usernames and passwords, or to enter them on a third-party website, where he would later retrieve them.




An addition to my list of similar articles for other social media.




Why bother inventing falsehoods when the truth is bad enough? Is this the path to Ad Revenue?
Liker, a Facebook Alternative for Liberals, Is Hive of False Claims About Trump
In the world of the anti-Trump Facebook #Resistance, no one has a bigger soapbox than Omar Rivero, the founder of the Occupy Democrats Facebook page.
Along with his brother Rafael, Rivero has amassed 7 million followers and an estimated six figures in monthly ad revenue for the page with viral-ready videos and infographics. In 2017, the Miami New Times noted that Occupy Democrats has more influence on Facebook “than virtually any other news source in America.”
But Rivero’s success has also brought attention to Occupy Democrats’ relaxed attitude toward the truth. Occupy Democrats has repeatedly been dinged by fact-checking sites for posting exaggerated or invented news stories, earning several “pants on fire” ratings from PolitiFact and amassing a number of mentions on hoax-debunking site Snopes. Brooke Binkowski, a journalist who covered Occupy Democrats as the managing editor of Snopes, told The Daily Beast that the page’s headlines were often “extremely misleading.”




I know some people who could have saved a lot of money had this been the rule of the land a few years ago.
Important Appeals Court Ruling States Clearly That Merely Having An IP Address Is Insufficient For Infringement Claims
Tons of copyright lawsuits (and even more copyright trolling shakedowns that never even reach court) are based on one single bit of data: the IP address. We've seen numerous district courts reject using a bare IP address as evidence of infringement, but now we have a very important (even if short and to the point) ruling in the 9th Circuit that could put a serious damper on copyright trolling.
In this copyright action, we consider whether a bare allegation that a defendant is the registered subscriber of an Internet Protocol (“IP”) address associated with infringing activity is sufficient to state a claim for direct or contributory infringement. We conclude that it is not.
The case involved well known copyright trolling lawyer Carl Crowell representing Cobbler Nevada LLC. As we discussed in our article on the district court decision, the actions in this case were particularly nefarious. Crowell quickly learned that the IP address in question belonged to an adult foster care home, but decided to go after the operator, Thomas Gonzales, even though he was aware that any of the many residents or staff may have actually been responsible for the infringement. Gonzales (reasonably) refused to just cough up the names and details of residents and staff without a court order, and Crowell's response was just to go after Gonzales directly. But the facts of this case made it especially easy for the lower court to highlight how a mere IP address is not nearly enough to allege infringement.
… The only connection between Gonzales and the infringement was that he was the registered internet subscriber and that he was sent infringement notices. To establish a claim of copyright infringement, Cobbler Nevada “must show that [it] owns the copyright and that the defendant himself violated one or more of the plaintiff’s exclusive rights under the Copyright Act.” Ellison v. Robertson, 357 F.3d 1072, 1076 (9th Cir. 2004). Cobbler Nevada has not done so.




A resource for my Data Management students.
Data Management University




Another non-automotive company plans to enter the electric vehicle market.
Dyson's EV ambitions include 10 miles of test tracks
Dyson is most definitely serious about its plans to release an electric vehicle. The company has outlined its proposed second growth phase for its EV development facility at Hullavington Airfield, and the plans are more than a little ambitious. Its application would create more than 10 miles of test tracks around the former base, including specialized tracks for hill and off-roading tests. You'd also see more than 480,000 square feet of new new development space with room for 2,000-plus workers.




For my students who like to watch videos while I lecture.
Students can stream Spotify, Hulu, and Showtime all for less than $5 a month
Listen to your favorite music, watch your favorite shows, and catch up on a few series you couldn't watch before with this expanded bundle from Spotify that now includes Hulu and Showtime. Spotify first teamed up with Hulu late last year to offer a similar service, but Showtime is a new addition that doesn't add anything to the price. That's a great combo of programs, especially if you don't have cable but do have access to some high-speed Internet. You will need to prove you're attending a Title IV accredited institution to get the deal, so no fooling the system.
The bundle includes a subscription to Spotify Premium, Hulu with Limited Commercials, and Showtime streaming services. The Hulu subscription is regularly $7.99 a month by itself. Spotify Premium is $9.99 and Showtime is $10.99 a month when purchased directly. There are lots of ways to get discounts on all of these services, but getting all three together for $4.99 is nuts.




He could be talking about my students!


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